Does active usage of cpap lower resting heart rate?

Recently had lifestyle change, lost a large amount of weight, working out daily etc. I noticed my at night heart rate BPM's is LOW. I had a holter monitor test last week and meeting with the doc to go over results this week. But he said that use of the CPAP machine lowers your heart rate throughout the day and night so he is not worried about my low rate which hits in the high 40's at night while sleeping. Just curious if anyone else is aware of this.

Thanks all!!

Actually an American Heart Association study found that cpap use reduced heart rate by 4.1 bpm.
Don’t have a citation, just remembered that bullet point.

Prior to CPAP my lowest sleeping HR was around 48-50 bpm per my O2Ring. The most recent while on CPAP were around 43-45 bpm. Fitbit watch shows around 50-51 bpm for an average resting HR.

Definitely. I started CPAP almost three weeks ago, and my average weekly resting heart rate during sleep has gone down from 66 bpm before CPAP, to 58 bpm now. My HRV has also improved (meaning increased).

good to know. I did see a study about it dropping 4 bpm. I was concerned that I was hitting 45- up at night. Again, cardiologist wasn't concerned, but will gett my holter monitor results today. Thanks everyone

Never heard that before. My average is usually around 48-51. I spend quite a bit of time in the 40's while sleeping and once in a while dips into the 30's. I've been on cpap for 8 or 9 years and have no reference to what it was before I started. That would be nice to know. During my last surgery and stay in intensive care they were concerned about my low heart rate. I'm not sure why because from what I've read 40's is pretty normal while sleeping.

Not using CPAP for apnea can lower it even more...in most people.

Many have lowered it to zero.

JPB

Rob K wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:15 pm

Never heard that before. My average is usually around 48-51. I spend quite a bit of time in the 40's while sleeping and once in a while dips into the 30's. I've been on cpap for 8 or 9 years and have no reference to what it was before I started. That would be nice to know. During my last surgery and stay in intensive care they were concerned about my low heart rate. I'm not sure why because from what I've read 40's is pretty normal while sleeping.

A few months ago I had an HR that dipped into the low 30's during the night. I mentioned it to my PCP and he said if it reoccurs he may want me to consider evaluation with a Holter monitor. This may happen sooner than later as I had a drop last night to 33. As I noted in a previous post my low HR usually runs about 43-45 during the night and my PCP had said these are acceptable.

Back a few years before I was on CPAP I had a hernia repair done. In the course of the surgery my HR had dropped to a level that earned me an overnight stay for monitoring.

So when is low heart rate a concern? Does anyone know much about this subject?

I'm still feeling quite bad all the time and wake about 8-10 times every night, always on my back. Still very exhausted everyday for the last 8 years. I've optimized my therapy years ago with SleepHead/Oscar software. AHI is usually less than 1. Cpap never seemed to do much for my sleep quality, it only improved a slight amount. I've made many life changes and I've been through just about every other potential problem over the years to no avail. Thinking I'm going to have to take a closer look at heart problems after reading these posts. If these findings are true than maybe cpap is making my already low heart rate even worse.

I haven't worn my Wellue O2 ring in a while but I just looked a my data from a year ago when I was wearing it every night. I would say the long term overall average was 50bpm and the low end average was 40bpm. I'm realizing I had a many nights where lows got down into the mid 30's. I'm assuming things are still the same. I would have to start using the ring again to verify.

Did a little research and read in quite a few places that sleep apnea can be a common cause of low heart rate(bradycardia) and that cpap can correct that problem. As usual there are findings that support all angles.

Are you taking any meds which can reduce hrart rate? There is a class of blood pressure meds that does that.

Have you done complete blood exams? Thyroid, vitamins, hormones, etc

You mention low AHI but you can have poor sleep with low AHI. You're waking up way too much during the night.(8 to 10??) Do you have any other problems like BPH? Maybe too many mask leaks waking you up? Muscle pains?

cyberdreamer wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:35 pm

Are you taking any meds which can reduce hrart rate? There is a class of blood pressure meds that does that.

Have you done complete blood exams? Thyroid, vitamins, hormones, etc

You mention low AHI but you can have poor sleep with low AHI. You're waking up way too much during the night.(8 to 10??) Do you have any other problems like BPH? Maybe too many mask leaks waking you up? Muscle pains?

Yes 8-10 times every night for years, no joke, it's brutal. Some nights it's even more than that. I'm not on any meds recently. Several sleep docs had me taking a number of sleeping meds over the years which didn't help much at all. The awakenings persisted right through all those meds. Have had a lot of blood drawn for tests over the years for all the things you mentioned with no significant findings. Pain is not a problem, mask leaks are under control and minimal. I almost never need to get up to urinate in the middle of the night. My current doctor is throwing ideas out there now that don't make sense, obviously he is at a loss like everyone else I've been to. I'm about to start looking for a new doctor with a fresh perspective. Also thinking I need to look deeper into heart related problems. In the last year I discovered I'm changing positions in bed all night that make it look like I'm awake on video, but I'm not conscious. I end up in varying positions through the night while I'm asleep. It's only when I end up on my back that I will consciously wake up, which is around 8-10 times every night, occasionally more. A recent sleep study showed my apnea was severe on my back. AHI is under 1 when using cpap. This is the same problem that brought me to this forum 5 years ago. The 3 years previous to that I relied on just doctor advise and got nowhere and ended up here on the forum. So a long torturous mystery that spans at least 8 years and seems to be getting worse.

My next mission is to do some more research on heart problems and talk to some doctors in that regard.

Getting back on topic. I've read several things now about studies done on sleep apnea and prediabetic patients. The patients that used a cpap had a heart rate that was 4.1bpm lower throughout the day vs those that did not use cpap.

For the moderate-to-severe, the primary effect/benefit relative to heart rate is that it won't increase at night with the panic-juice release that would otherwise be occurring with each obstruction.

In the 40s at night is no cause for concern for the healthy. Or during the day, for that matter, unless other conditions or history make it a concern, as I understand it.

There are other more pertinent indicators of overall heart health.